re: When did SEC dominance originate?

The SEC dominance began to take shape when Coach Bryant stepped down then passed away. Prior to 1982 UTk/UGA/UA were the only ones with a national face. In the 1980 AU decided they wanted to step their game up. Then a few years later FL did the same. At this point was when the Bowl Coalition came about as mentioned earlier and the SEC had enough teams in the big-boy game that when one fell into a down cycle two were primed to carry on. When LSU made the choice to join the club we had 6 teams all ready to fly and the chance of a down cycle for all of them was gone by the time the BCS was in place.

Now Arky and USCe have made their move to try and join the club. TX A&M looks like they want to be there too. So starting next year we will have 9 of our 14 teams that know what to do and the recruiting base to feed it. SEC dominance is not going away any time soon.

Not sure why the Aubies have not stepped up to take credit for something they did right to kick this off. It took 10 years for the move they made to really explode as it did in the 1992 Sugar Bowl.